


and her heartbeat sounds suspiciously like his name

by maybe_she_is



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/M, wow the feels atm hey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybe_she_is/pseuds/maybe_she_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanna Marin loves Caleb Rivers. <br/>That’s just how it is, how it always will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and her heartbeat sounds suspiciously like his name

Hanna Marin loves Caleb Rivers.

That’s just how it is, how it always will be.

She thinks maybe he’s forgotten that.

She thinks maybe she has too.

Jordan is her Prince Charming, but Hanna never believed in fairy tales until she met Caleb.

But Jordan is kind, and sweet, and loving, and Caleb left her like he said he never would.

She left him too, she supposes. No, she did. It’s both their faults. But all it was ever supposed to be was space- she loved Jordan, but even though she said yes, she knew she’d never go through with the wedding.

Jordan may have been in her heart, but Caleb was in her bones.

When she returned to Rosewood for Ali – _for A!_ \- and he’d come to her door, she had, for the briefest of seconds, thought that she lay in his bones too.

But his lips parted to form the name _Spencer_ in the same way he used to say _Hanna_ , and she knew that while she may be in his bones, sometime since she’d last seen him, Spencer had made a home in his soul.

And Hanna doesn’t know how they can recover from this, if they can at all. She loves Spencer, and she loves Caleb, and she wants them both to be happy. She just never imagined they would be happy together.

But maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just friends who love each other so dearly they’ve mistaken friendship for romance. Maybe they’re trying to fill the emptiness in their hearts. Maybe they’re just broken and they want to be broken together.

Hanna doesn’t think so. But she hopes.

She loves Jordan, but Caleb is the one her heart beats for. She loves Jordan, but Caleb will always have been there first. She loves Jordan, she does. _She does!_

Emily sees right through her, and Hanna loves and hates her for it.

Watching them together makes Hanna sick, but she smiles through her teeth and bites her lip to keep from shrieking that _it’s wrong, it’s all so wrong_.

And so maybe she’ll marry Jordan, be the picturesque bride in white- be a _wife_. Maybe they’ll have children and she’ll love them too. Maybe she’ll be happy. Almost. Because maybe Caleb and Spencer will last, maybe they’ll really be happy- and Hanna hopes they do, and they are, otherwise this will all have been for nothing. And maybe she’ll get postcards, and letters, and everyone will tell her how happy they are and how happy she should be, but maybe Hanna just won’t be.

Maybe every time she looks at Jordan, she’ll love him, but wish he was someone else. Maybe her children – no. Hanna will love her children. She’ll love Jordan.

She just won’t love them _as much_.

But they’ll be enough, more than enough, they’ll be a family, and Hanna will be happy.

Almost.

Maybe in forty years Aria will laugh and say, “Hey Hanna, remember when you and Caleb dated?”

And Hanna will say oh, that’s funny, she’d almost forgotten.

And she won’t be lying.

She’ll almost have forgotten, almost been able to stop the beating of her heart sounding so much like his name.

But-

_Most of my life, I’ve felt alone, even when I was with people. That was until I met you._

But-

_I have one very good reason to come back. You._

But-

_I love you, Hanna Marin._

But-

_We’re intimate._

But-

_Hanna, there was an exclamation point._

But-

_There’s nobody like you in the entire world._

But-

And maybe Hanna will start to believe in the ghosts Caleb told her about all those years ago. Because maybe he’s become one.

No. No, Hanna’s done, she can’t go down that road.

But if she marries Jordan, that’s exactly the road she chooses.

What can she do, though? She loves Jordan; she can’t just break it off. Spencer and Caleb are happy together, she can’t jeopardise that.

If only she knew how he felt.

Does he even remember, does it even matter to him, or are they just ‘friends’ now?

They will never just be friends.

Hanna Marin loves Caleb Rivers.

That’s just how it is, how it always will be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is not meant to be an anti spaleb fic. I do not ship them in the current situation, but if Haleb had never happened I'd be all for it. As it is, Haleb is love, spaleb ruins everything and makes me want to scream.


End file.
